A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Saturday evening, a little before five pm, I looked out from my terrace to see a threatening sky, with large storm clouds coming in. “Ya viene la lluvia,” I thought. “Here come the rains.” Almost immediately, seeing the intensity of the clouds, I recalled the title of a Bob Dylan song, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” And it did.

It rained hard for several hours. And it rained hard again during the early hours of the morning – not only in Plan Grande, but in other parts of the parish.

Sunday morning I went to San Antonio El Alto, above San Agustín. I had planned to visit all the sick after the Celebration of the Word, but the “road” down to one house was very slick and I decided to wait till next week.

After bringing Communion to four people in three houses, I got home about 12:15 pm, ate lunch, changed my pants. (That’s another story.) I then headed off for El Limón where Father German was going to celebrate Mass.

As I left my house a neighbor, who is the coordinator of the Parish Council, stopped me and showed me a few photos on his phone of damage from last night’s storm – houses and the school’s wall collapsed in Vertientes, about half of road between El Limon and Vega Redonda washed away by the river.

When I got to the turn-off to El Limón, I realized I wasn’t going to get to the church without walking. The ramp up to the bridge had been washed away. Cars couldn’t get up onto the bridge – only pedestrians or motorcycles. So I parked the car and walked to the church (about 300 meters.)

The washout leaves seven rural villages without access.

Walking back to the car after Mass, we saw some men cutting up tree trunks on a patch of sand in the middle of the river. Looking closer at the bridge, one could see tree trunks which had become stuck under the bridge.

I didn’t get to the part of the road that washed away on the way to Vega Redonda, but I remember stopping there on the way back from Vega Redonda a few months after the 2020 hurricanes. As I was taking a picture, a part of the road fell into the river.

There has been a lot of rain recently, more than normal, and the storms have been fierce. The soil is saturated – and it’s only July. The hurricane season is October and November. 

We may have some serious problems – again. 

Are we "On the Eve of Destruction"? 

It has also been extremely hot. This time of year is usually a little cooler, but the temperatures are more like April. The effects of climate change are serious in our area. 

And, of course, the poor suffer the most. 

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For some strange reason, Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" came to mind in the face of these disasters.